The morning light filtered in through the translucent crystalline walls of Princess Twilight Sparkle's personal library, even the darkest corners glowed with a cool purple and blue ambiance. Starlight, sleeping mask still perched on top of her head, squinted her way towards the reading table with a coffee levitated close behind. If she had one complaint about her new living arrangements it was waking up snowblind every morning, the crystal castle with its crystal walls lined with veins of more crystal and decorated with yet more crystal may have looked like a nice ornament from without but from within? She felt like she was living inside a lampshade.
Irritated face and wild bush of uncombed mane in place she slumped down on a purple cushion with tasteful silver lining, took a long draft of the sweet nectar of life out of her mug and, with some struggle looked across the sapphire table to her mentor "morning Twilight".
Unfortunately instead of the Alicorn of Friendship she was confronted by a wall of dusty old books; Twilight's obnoxiously cheerful face poked out from behind the pile grinning excitedly "A very good morning too Starlight!"
The former dictator scrunched her eyes even tighter "Twilight you're at an 8 right now, I need you below a 5 or I'm not going to be able to cope."
There was a nervous chuckle from the Princess before she trotted round the mountain of books and sat next to her pupal "sorry Starlight, I know the feeling, just count yourself lucky your teacher isn't practically the sun. It's just..." she flapped her arm excitedly at the pile "...books! They're all one of a kind papers on magical theory that have been languishing in the Canterlot archives unsorted and guess what!?"
Starlight gently placed a hoof on Twilight's muzzle pushing it out of her personal space and her rump back onto Rarity's tasteful cushion "we get to sort them, then read them and catalogue them right?..." She deadpanned, took a bracing slurp of coffee and sighed "...at least it will be quiet".
Twilight threw a hoof around her "That's almost the spirit! Now go grumble your way to the bathroom and when you feel more alive come lend a hoof, Kay?" Starlight grinned in exasperated amusement shaking her head "sure thing Twilight".
The fuchsia unicorn hauled herself up and off across the room towards the glass doors, half way she passed an equally grumpy looking Spike staggering in the opposite direction hauling a cart of index cards, "How long she been like this?" Starlight inquired of the fledgling dragon, he shot her a withering look "since they got here an hour ago", the two assistants shared an empathetic chuckle and continued on their way.
The soft hum of wind friction on crystal filled the silence of the Library. It was a nice feature Starlight considered; the soothing spectral choir almost made up for the pressing need for sunglasses in the morning, maybe that isn't such bad idea? She filed it away for further consideration and with a tinny chime levitated the next book up before her face. She chuckled "Hey Twilight, 'The impossibility of time travel by R.Hoofington', score one for the supervillain"
The Alicorn shook her head with a giggle "well I think we can put that firmly in the debunked pile, it's a shame you can't write a counter thesis".
Starlight scribbled down a note and floated it over to one of the many piles "How I destroyed Equestria with time travel; suck on that R. Hoofington by Starlight Glimmer" the two mages shared a chuckle as Twilight rolled her eyes.
The Unicorn took up the next book, suddenly the brilliant light winked out and she was hunched over a dying candle in her halls at Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. Tears of rage ran down her face as she heaved and spluttered out the wooden frame window at the empty night. In the distance the soft thump of freshers week revels shook the wooden floor of her tiny room. "He's not here!.." she growled"...he's gone forever because of his stupid cutie mark...", spittle flecked the worn writing desk before her as she seethed with fury "...if he hadn't got it..." Starlight faded out in sudden revelation.
It wasn't her fault she was alone, it was her cutiemark, branded forever to be separate from others who destiny it was to ignore her. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right: lives destroyed because a butt tattoo declared it so, well she wasn't going to live with it, she was going to fix it! Free everyone from their shackles of destiny and she would be never be lonely again!
A cold wave of recollection poured through her soul and the white plaster walls bent and blurred; but she had fixed the world, she had already made her utopia. A place free from cutiemarks where everyone was equal and she had been...more alone than ever; her position as leader, the constant clinical monitoring of the town and her deceitful manipulation had kept her more isolated from those she called her friends than ever before. It wasn't a cutiemark that drove others away, it was her unwillingness to change or compromise, her fixation with everything being just as she wanted it and in the end her hubris had almost destroyed Equestria, reduced to a lonely wasteland, just like her.
An angry purple spark leapt from the book to Starlights horn, she yelped in pain throwing herself backwards to the cold moonstone floor as the book hit the table with a solid thump.
Twilight was with her immediately "What happen Starlight!? Are you O.K!?" A warm tingle passed through the prone mage as she looked up at the concern etched face of the princess, it was nice to have friends.
She pulled herself up "the book was searching my mind for something, something...dark. When it couldn't find it the bloody thing stung me!"
The Alicorn of Friendship's horn flared into life and a wall of violet swept her charges skull "I'm not picking up any enchantments or hexes" she muttered gently.
Starlight held her throbbing head "don't worry Twilight, it tried to do something; stir up my loneliness and resentment I think but luckily that's a battle I won months ago. It wasn't able to adapt and assault my other weaknesses so we can assume it is a one trick trap, rather crude and amateurish to be honest"
The purple Alicorn chuckled with relief "well you can critique the death trap in that '1000 rules for an evil overlord' you keep threatening to write, let's see what this is".
Twilight carefully flipped the object over by hoof, on the cover of the brown leather book written in gold emboss was 'The Magic Labyrinth of I.M.Meen', she couldn't feel any obvious magic aura but something rubbed against her untrained divine senses that definitely was unfriendly.
Starlight scrunched up her muzzle "real leather, how barbaric"
Twilight hummed meditatively, she was more accustomed to some of the more primitive book binding methods; usually cowhide and sometimes wolf skin but this was something unknown yet disturbingly familiar, "Sweet Celestia on a bike!.." the Alicorn gasped "...it's pony skin!"
Her unicorn assistant closed her eyes and took a step back "ugh, I need to puke; super hard" but Twilight leaned forward her eyebrows beetleing with anger at the nightmarish tome, she prodded aggressively at the spine like it was some sort of coiled serpent she could provoke into action.
"Be sick on your own time..." Twilight commanded "...I thought I would never meet a book I didn't like but this one is shifty, spiteful and evil. We need to figure out who this Meen character is, what this book is capable of and why he'd produce such a nasty novel" she called on her magic to perform another scan but as soon as it made contact there was a snap of purple static and Twilight leaped up with a yelp "Gah! Son of a...look here you trashy saddle ripper! You can struggle all you want but I am a Librarian and there isn't a book I can't read!" She poured on the magic and the cover sparked and shorted at her as she struggled to grasp it in her magic.
Starlight looked worried "erm don't you thinks it's a tiny bit dangerous..." there was a whump as Twilight forced open the cover bending the spine like she was applying an ankle lock, she shoved her face towards the page "now creepy book, tell me your secrets!" Starlight leaned over her shoulder to peer into the page.
On the moldering yellow paper in scratchy writing was written 'I knew a little bookworm who tried to get away, until the friendly guardians persuaded them to stay' Twilight raised a perplexed eyebrow "what the hay does..." a sudden blast of green, purple and violet light erupted from the page engulfing the Princess and her student, the cover snapped itself shut cutting off the light show and leaving an empty room before it.
Not a million miles away children were giggling and running in circles after a pink fluffy cloud that had arrived at Halfstep's birthday party and proceeded to dump chocolate milk on the orphanage's warden. Discord, Lord of Chaos, grinned indulgently at the little scamp's as they raised chaos pelting up and down the garden, besides everyone deserves a treat on their birthday. Suddenly a mechanical arm holding a mallet rocketed out from his back and struck his head which rang like a church bell "That's odd..." he scratched "...my chaos sense is tingling, but if it isn't me who else could create a surge that strong? Twilight's far too rigid..." he let the cloud land and the foals pounced on it with squeaks of delight at the discovery of its confectionery nature "...duty calls". The Draconequus produced a hole from a pocket that wasn't there, slapped it on thin air and slithered through before reaching back out, grasping the edge and pulling the hole in on itself.
Spike was panicking, he'd only stepped out for five minutes to get more index cards and when he returned they were gone without a trace. Something must be up for them to disappear without explanation, if only he knew "...If only he knew what?" Boomed a familiar voice.
Spike looked down and shrieked; on the crystalline floor instead of his reflection was Discord, the young drake fell backwards clutching his chest "don't do that to me!"
The Draconequus peeled himself off the floor like a sticker and blew into his thumb to re-inflate himself "you seem on edge my Purple friend?"
Spike dusted himself off and shook his head "it's nothing, Twilight and Starlight just vanished in the middle of a book sorting and I was worrying."
Discord's eyebrows narrowed dangerously "Red Alert!.." he hollered, pulsing red illumination and klaxon alarms mysteriously activated "...summon the elements dragon butler! Something is amiss, I felt the disturbance from Manehattan"
A bewildered Spike gawked about before snapping back to Discord "You mean something is wrong?"
The Lord of Chaos raised an eyebrow "was me shouting 'red alert' not a clue?"...